Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

I used to love listening to the radio on Christmas Eve because they always tracked Santa. They would give locations and the progress of Santa and how close he was to your city and it added to the magic of the night. My son is 4 years old, my daughter just turned 2 and because I am always online I did a search for the Santa Tracker for Christmas Eve. Sure enough NORAD has something there for my kids and I online.

Take a look at some of the video they put together from 2007 below.

Hope you all have Merry Christmas and for those of you who don’t celebrate Christamas – have a Happy Holiday.

It feels like the plague has taken over our house. My wife is down for the count with a fever and I am on my way. We think we caught it from the kids who bring everything home from their petri dish… I mean daycare. We took our daughter to the doctor today as she had an appointment already scheduled with her ENT (specialist) and after a clean bill of health we decided to take mom and dad by the walk in clinic. Verdict? We have strep throat. Booohooohooo. We have our anti-biotics and are going to get healthy, but before the doctor’s visit we were pretty sure that we just had a cold with a cough.

So what’s our choice? NyQuil! We love it because you can pretty much take it with whatever ails you, then you promptly go into a coma for 9 hours. AWESOME! The only problem is that my wife and I don’t like to take it on the same night in case something happens with the kids and night and we need a level head. So tonight isn’t my night. Boohoo!

Wish us luck, hopefully the Amoxil kicks in sooner than later.

I have a son who is starting to use a computer and like his dad, getting very comfortable with it :) Makes me happy but given that he’s 4, yet I am weary of a mis-click or a something popping up on his screen if he is on the internet. Even when you are watching your kids on the internet these days, even sitting right beside them, there is still a chance that you end up somewhere that was unintentional by the child and not foreseen by you.

KidZui is in the business of making an alternative browser for kids. What is amazing about this kid product is that it is geared towards the child. The browser interface is something that I am sure my 4 year old will like (and we’ll be getting that installed soon) but something that would make you or I want to use a crayola crayon on the LCD. Their other huge selling point in my eyes is that instead of limiting the websites that they feel are negative or could be deemed inappropriate, the took the opposite approach. They have white listed sites that they feel are of good value for kids and parents. Their reviewers are “trained parents and teachers” so that makes me feel good about the filtering.

I am new to the service, but I think it has been around for some time. I found it because it is now free and they seem heavy into a marketing campaign to let us all know.

Check it out, it’s free! :)